UK

2012

London, December 19, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is alarmed that two attacks against journalists in Northern Ireland
have taken place over the past week. On Friday, a pipe bomb was left at the
door of the home of freelance press photographer Mark Pearce. On Monday, Adrian
Rutherford, a reporter with the daily Belfast
Telegraph, was attacked by a gang while covering Loyalist protests in East
Belfast.

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New York, November 29, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists is deeply concerned by recommendations to adopt government
regulation of the press resulting from the United Kingdom's Leveson inquiry
report issued today.

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The battle for a free press sometimes feels like a war
between indignation and intimidation. Journalists learn of abuses of power,
crime, or corruption, and--indignant--they speak out. In response, the
perpetrators of those abuses--be they government officials or criminals--try to
intimidate the journalists into silence with threats, lawsuits, jail, or even
murder. Last night, the Committee to Protect Journalists paid
tribute to a handful of journalists for whom indignation is a driving
force, no matter the scale of intimidation.

"The rules of the game have changed," then-Prime Minister Tony Blair said after the July 7, 2005, terrorist attacks in London as he announced that the U.K. government would clamp down on terrorists "whatever it takes." Now, the limits of such bold but vague intentions are on show as the draft Communications Data Bill undergoes pre-legislative scrutiny in a joint committee of British Members of Parliament and Peers. Is gathering digital data from the general population a necessary upgrade of law enforcement capabilities, as the British Government argues, or does it dilute the liberal tenets of British democracy for the sake of security?

More than 40 media organizations worldwide are demanding
urgent action by governments, the United Nations, and the industry to stop
violence against journalists and end impunity in attacks on the press. They
made their position known in a joint statement
delivered today to the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization
(UNESCO).

The Quito government's decision to grant Julian Assange
political asylum comes at a time when freedom of expression is under siege in Ecuador.
President Rafael Correa's press freedom record is among the very worst in the
Americas, and providing asylum to the WikiLeaks founder won't change the
repressive conditions facing Ecuadoran journalists who want to report
critically about government policies and practices.

Trickling back from
the summer recess, European press freedom advocates and media lawyers are
taking stock of facts and statements that went underreported during the holiday
lull. And libel reform stands on top of the pile.

Chinese propaganda
officials must be thrilled that they're not responsible for the Olympics
coverage in the British papers. Back during the Beijing Games, they worked hard
to censor unrest and dissatisfaction in the domestic media. Reports of China's press freedom and human rights abuses were blocked, the kind of information
control idiomatically referred to as "harmonizing."

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This week, Morgan Marquis-Boire and Bill
Marczak of the University of
Toronto's Citizen Lab provided a disturbing
look into the likely use of a commercial surveillance program, FinFisher,
to remotely invade and control the computers of Bahraini activists. After the
software installs itself onto unsuspecting users' computer, it can record and
relay emails, screenshots, and Skype audio conversations. It was deployed
against Bahraini users after being concealed in seemingly innocent emails.

Well, that didn't take long. Just days after The New York Times' soft launch of its
Chinese-language edition and accompanying microblog accounts, Berkeley-based China Digital Times website reports
that the @nytchinese Sina Weibo feed is no longer accessible in China,
along with two accounts hosted by Netease
and Sohu. We couldn't pull them up this
morning from New York, either.

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New libel legislation proposed
by the British government has been met with general approval by reform campaigners,
who will now train their sights on further strengthening some aspects of the bill
during the parliamentary process.

The celebration Tuesday of the 50th
anniversary of the Association of European
Journalists (AEJ) should have been a joyful and lighthearted affair.
Dozens of journalists from all parts of the European Union had traveled to
Brussels to share memories, new projects, champagne, and petits fours.

Amid political
tumult in Islamabad, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and a team
of six ministers are in London for far-ranging meetings today through May 13. The
Pakistan-U.K. Enhanced Strategic Dialogue will review education, health, defense,
security, and cultural cooperation. CPJ has written a letter
to Prime Minister David Cameron to urge that press freedom conditions be raised
as well.

Dear Prime Minister Cameron: As you begin your meetings with Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to review the Pakistan-U.K. Enhanced Strategic Dialogue, we would like to draw your attention to concerns regarding the protection of journalists in Pakistan. CPJ data show that the country has been ranked the deadliest in the world for journalists for two consecutive years. This year, Pakistan also placed 10th on CPJ's Impunity Index, which spotlights countries where journalists are regularly murdered and their killers go free.

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When journalists make enemies in high places, they become
vulnerable to the powers those figures wield. One such power is the state's capacity
to wiretap and obtain personal records from communications companies. From
Colombia's phone-tapping
scandal to last year's case of Gerard
Davet--a Le Monde reporter whose
phone records were obtained by the French intelligence service in apparent violation
of press freedom laws--state surveillance has a long history of being misused
against reporters.

The European Court of Human Rights is a victim of its
success. In 2011, more than 60,000 people sought its help after exhausting all
judicial remedies before national courts. But now, some member states of the Strasbourg-based
Council of Europe are pushing for reforms of the prestigious institution and are
pointing at the number of cases to make their argument. Instead of enhancing
the court's capacity to deal with the backlog of cases, their moves would clip
the court's prerogatives and undermine a citizen's capacity to defend his most
fundamental rights.

After the London launch of CPJ's Attacks
on the Press at the Frontline Club this week, I had an opportunity to
talk to a number of young journalists setting out to regions where reporters
are frequently at risk. As CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon noted,
these discussions took on an extra poignancy the next day, with the news of the
death of Marie Colvin and Rémi Ochlik.

In her final hours, Marie Colvin gave this damning report to CNN's Anderson Cooper.

Bravery, generosity, and commitment: These are the three
characteristics of Marie
Colvin that have surfaced, again and again, in the many tributes spoken and
published since the veteran Sunday Times
reporter was killed
Wednesday in the besieged city of Homs by Syrian forces.

Not since the worst period of the Iraq war, or in the
Balkans the decade before, have so many storied journalists been killed or seriously
injured in such a short period of time. Inevitably, the spate of deaths leaves
many journalists asking questions about whether and how much they are willing
to risk their own lives, and possibly the lives of others. Many experienced
journalists might agree on one thing: the decisions one makes about risk are
among the most intimate decisions they will ever make.

Last night at London's Frontline Club, CPJ launched its global
survey of press freedom conditions, Attacks on the Press. The topic of discussion was the safety
of journalists covering conflict and the panel consisted of journalist and
documentarian Jenny Kleeman, ITN safety guru Colin Pereira, and journalist and
filmmaker Maziar Bahari, who was imprisoned
in Iran following the disputed 2009 presidential elections.

Legislation for Internet security can quickly turn into a weapon against the free press. Cybercrime laws are intended to extend existing penal codes to the online world, but they can easily be broadened to criminalize standard journalistic practices. By Danny O'Brien

In the EU, some countries appear more immune than others to scrutiny and reproach. Anti-terror laws, political and economic concerns, and a lack of common standards all challenge the credibility of the EU's diplomacy. By Jean-Paul Marthoz

The News of the World phone-hacking scandal and subsequent public inquiry raised concerns that public interest journalism could suffer from efforts to curtail unethical practices through regulation. While investigating related police leaks, Scotland Yard invoked the Official Secrets Act to pressure a journalist to reveal sources for her coverage of the scandal. Authorities ultimately backed down from the unprecedented effort. Several journalists came under attack while covering mass riots in urban areas in August. Prime Minister David Cameron said news outlets must hand over raw footage of rioters and suggested the government restrict social media tools to curb street violence. The government drafted a defamation bill aimed at reforming the U.K.'s much-criticized libel laws. The measure had yet to go through parliament.

New York, February 3, 2012--The Committee to Protect
Journalists condemns the detention and harassment in Iran of relatives of BBC
Persian service staff who work outside the country, which is part of a
sustained campaign to intimidate journalists into not reporting critically on
Tehran's activities.

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Last
week, Twitter provoked a fierce debate online when it announced a new capability--and related
policy--to hide tweets on a country-specific basis. By building this feature
into its website's basic code, Twitter said it hoped to offer a more tailored
response to legal demands to remove tweets globally. The company will inform
users if any tweet they see has been obscured, and provide a record of all
demands to remove content with the U.S.-based site chillingeffects.org.